This piece posted by Tetyana Lokot on GlobalVoices.org as part of RuNet Echo, attempts an easily scannable and visually broken down style of delivery but loses its message amidst its Twitter screenshots.

Lokot breaks down her news post by screencapping tweets from a wide array of different sources, some verified Twitter accounts but most not. Hyperlinks to give context and authority to these sources would have made for more informative, engaging and trustworthy reading (Rohumaa & Bradshaw, 2011, p. 38).

Text boxes containing translations of the Russian tweets are necessary, however their visual delivery is cramped and out of proportion. The amount of boxes and visuals overwhelms the piece itself, reducing it to a commentary without a strong common thread. The piece could also do with some subheading to break down its different themes and sections for comprehensive reading and multiple entry points into the text (Rohumaa & Bradshaw, 2011, p. 37).

Social media sharing icons and choices to engage with the article and writer are provided and hyperlinks are provided well throughout the piece, except for the repetitive links to the Twitter hashtag #panamapapers where one would be sufficient.

Word count: 190

Reference:

Rohumaa, L., & Bradshaw, P. (2011). Writing for the web. In Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the digital age (pp. 29-46). Routledge.

The word choice of the article headline could be improved to one that would assist in the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and one that is less ambiguous and generate more interest from an International audience (Rohumaa & Bradshaw. 2011:37). Another point for improvement is the font size and presentation of the headline that loses focal point from the distractions of the surrounding advertisements.

The advertisement is the first thing in the reader’s line of sight, detracting attention from the article headline

Further improvements could be centered on downsizing the advertisements to be smaller and less distracting from the main news article.

Better use of spacing to avoid ‘chunks’ to help the reader easily read the information to focus on the main points of the article whilst they scroll through (Dorner. 2002:57). A ‘Key Points’ bullet-point section could help to downsize the mass of text (Dorner. 2002:72), such as:

What is K-Pop?

What are ‘Slave Contracts’?

Improved sub-headings to better gauge the content and lead the readers through the article, such as “information-carrying” words for SEO (Rohumaa & Bradshaw. 2011:36). Changes to font colour/size/Bolding/Italicisation would allow headings to be distinguishable from the main text.

Sub-heading blends into the mass of text and does little guide the reading experience

The addition of tags/categories could offer easy online search ability for readers to find similar and related stories (Rohumaa & Bradshaw. 2011:36,38). The inclusion of a comments section could also assist in user engagement.

Bradshaw and Rohumaa (2011) list the defining characteristics of online journalism (pp. 30-31), and while this story seems to fulfil most of them, it lacks in a few aspects, like reporting a story in real-time, and it could do a better use of multimedia and interactivity.

Bradshaw and Rohumaa (2011) suggest that “journalists can report a story in real-time and distribute the story concurrently to several sites on several platforms” (p. 30). While the story was shared on WikiNews’ Twitter, that was the only other site besides the main platform that it was shared on, despite WikiNews having a Facebook page, and even more, considering that nowadays, readers get their news through different sources, like other social media sites, and mobile apps. Therefore, WikiNews could improve it’s reporting in real-time using more social media platforms.

The article includes a general map of Lahore, but it is the only piece of multimedia it has, and the map does not indicate where the bombings happened. The article could use different types of media, as it would make it more engaging and interesting.

Map of Lahore included in the article

Finally, the article has a comments section, and a section to point out errors in the article, but there is no apparent way of communicating with the journalist(s), and besides the comment section, there is no other way of reinforcing a community. The platform would benefit from a way to communicate directly with the writer(s), and a way to interact with other readers.

I chose the news reported on CNNireport about the serial bomb happened in Brussels on 22th of March.

CNNireport is a participatory website for citizen journalism reporting the truth and opinion about one news. For this news, CNNireport left a simple and clear headline to engage audiences. In addition, the leading and the news story is short and clear to introduce the basic fact to let reader know what, when and how that happened.

Then, many different posts around world, about the tribute, show follow the story. Different people from different countries prayed for Brussels in different ways. Moreover, there are photographs shows the current situation in the airport of Brussels. The pictures are not taken by professional journalists but shocked and powerful.

The style of CNNireport makes the same news could have different delivery angle by citizen journalism with stronger emotion that could help audiences feel the news story not only as the “cold” fact. While, CNNireport seems like a social media platform for sharing information without authority.

The headline of this news is clear to show the accident happened(when, where, what, how). The article also has reported the details about the news. Moreover, it has the quote of an eye-witness in order to support the incident news. There is not very many paragraphs to report the news which is more clear and easy read for readers.

As for the improvement of the online news and the scannability, I recommend using subheadings to guide the audience get the information directly. This article need has more news images or the video to show the incident, however, if it use images and video need to have the notice about the negative influence of the audience because the images and video may let readers feel bad.

The headline of this article is clear and concise. This article also includes a lead which gives readers a brief and essential information to quickly understand the key points of the story. Using a lot of white space between paragraphs improves the readability of the article. It also uses hyperlinks to make readers get relevant information.

A screenshoot of the Upstart article by Katherine McLeod

However, there are too many paragraphs and detailed information in the article making it boring for people who only have little time to scan. So I recommend using subheadings to guide readers get the most important information. This article only contains one picture in it. So, I strongly suggest that related pictures and videos should be included in to attract the attention of readers.

Tags are used on the bottom to make readers easily identify article categories. However, there is no sharing button. I suggest adding social media sharing buttons to indirectly increase the click rate.

Although the Upstart’s story has an attractive headline that catches readers’ eyes and interactive-features where readers can comment by leaving a reply below, there is also a lot of areas for improvement on this article.

To improve the scannability of the text, I would try to add some subheadings such as “the policy””hard to give up” “diminish returns” to give the readers numerous points into the news.It would also give readers an idea of what they are getting.

Browsing the whole article is a little boring because there is not a video or a picture. The multimedia content can make it easier to attract reader’s reading interest and for readers to understand. I would add one or two smoking related pictures or a bar chart to illustrate the data mentioned in the article.